The term “web publishers” refers to operators of web sites made up of one or more web pages (hereafter “pages”) that contain various kinds of content. It is typical for a web publisher (hereafter a “publisher”) to sell to web advertisers “advertising space” —the opportunity to include an advertising message on web pages of its web site when presented to users visiting its web site.
Web publishers have a significant degree of flexibility in selling advertising space to web advertisers (hereafter “advertisers”). Advertising space may be sold using a wide variety of schemes, including (1) exclusive positional: selling the exclusive right to include an advertising message in a particular position on a particular page; (2) behavioral: selling the right to include an advertising message on one or more pages presented to users that are members of a specified group, that have performed a specified action or activity, or that have one or more other specified characteristics; and (3) run-of-site: selling the right to include an advertising message on pages and in positions chosen by the publisher. Advertising campaigns using different schemes may be sold—and may operate—simultaneously on a publisher's web site.
The level of flexibility available to publishers is further expanded by various aspects of individual schemes—such as the selection criteria for behavioral schemes—and by various aspects that are common to all of the schemes—such as the price paid by the advertiser for each presentation, or “impression,” of an advertising message included on pages of the advertiser's site.
It is typical for the advertising sales strategy for a particular publisher to be established manually by an employee of the publisher, using their best guess about the strategy most likely to maximize advertising revenue, and to maximize any other objectives favored by the advertiser. While such “best guess” strategies are sometimes successful, they often fall far from maximizing advertising revenue, or maximizing or fully satisfying other objectives favored by the publisher.
As one example, a publisher may need to determine, if a new advertising campaign is to be added to an existing set of advertising campaigns for a web site, the number of impressions that will be presented as part of the new advertising campaign. This is typically a function of the number of web pages that will be viewed on the web site, as well as the interaction between the new campaign and the existing campaigns in “competing” to be included on these viewed web pages. Being able to anticipate the number of impressions that will be presented in the advertising campaign can be important in setting the advertisers' expectations for the campaign's results. In some cases, the publisher explicitly or implicitly guarantees that a certain number of impressions will be presented in the advertising campaign, which makes it even more important for the publisher to determine the number of impressions that will be presented in the advertising campaign.
In view of the foregoing, a decision-support tool that enabled a publisher to prospectively test and evaluate one or more possible advertising sales strategies would have significant utility.